The invention relates to a movable lifting and depositing device for portable containers, e.g., cabins, containers, shelters or the like, with rack and pinion jacks to be connected to the corners of the containers by means of brackets, and of which the racks are provided on columns which have track wheels, and which can be raised for depositing the container, e.g., on the ground, or for lifting it from the ground by the rack and pinion jacks to the level of the base of the container.
To handle such portable containers, particularly for loading and unloading of the same into and out of transport aircraft, either expensive crane trucks or loadable, relatively bulky special vehicles with lifting mechanisms have been used, which likewise are expensive and require much storage space themselves.
Suitable lifting and depositing devices of the type described and for the aforementioned purposes can require less storage space, so that they can be simply left without further problems after a container is loaded. These lifting and depositing devices, however, have the drawback that the jack mechanisms, including the column or support guides, are attached relatively high on the brackets, so that when a container is lifted to a relatively high position or is lifted out of such a high position (which, e.g., can be defined by the loading surface of a cargo truck), quite a length of the columns beneath the jacks is freed, i.e., not supported, which leads to instability of the device and to a correspondingly great unsupported length of the columns which may buckle. Also, the manual cranks of the jacks are complicated to operate in such cases because of their high position. On the other hand, with these known lifting and depositing devices, the rack and pinion jacks including the support or column guides cannot be arranged lower on the brackets, because the track wheels mounted on the bottom ends of the columns, e.g., for placement of the container on the ground or for lifting it to the level of the base of the container, must allow lifting of the wheels, which requires a corresponding free space beneath the jacks and column guides to receive the track wheels.